We asked you: Should President Obama send troops back to Iraq?

Friday Back Talk

YES 6% NO 94%

June 27, 2014

A political solution

We can debate the missed or ignored signs of militant growth when we pulled out of Iraq in 2011. But any idea that a permanent military force in the Middle East can somehow make Shia and Sunni factions work together for the common good is as stupid as thinking Republicans and Democrats can work together for the good of this country.

Repeated deployments have severely hurt our military forces, and a continuance would in all likelihood require a return to the draft, which the public will not accept.

ISIL exists through financial support, much of it coming from other countries in the Middle East. Applying pressure on the money sources and subjecting their delivery routes to constant interdiction will cause the support to die on the vine.

This has to be a political solution and John Kerry's job as secretary of state is to convince other countries threatened by terrorism to work together.

Jim Dowdy Orlando

Finish the job

Here we are again, Americans with leftist values bringing more immorality to the world. Whatever one's view on the appropriateness of going into Iraq, strong, adult, moral Americans stay and finish their job.

But again, just like the left did in Vietnam, they act like weak children with no moral compass. They abandon the messiness of life and our moral commands as Americans. They leave millions to the oppression, rape, torture and murder that will come from people, this time not communists but radical Islamists.

Howard Sachs Naples

Leave it to British, French

The United States should not send any service members to Iraq. We have already lost more than 4,400 military personnel and spent more than a trillion dollars on an unnecessary war.

We should let the British and French handle the problems in Syria, Iraq and Libya. We were a lot better off when the ugly dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gadhafi were in power. You cannot impose democracy upon a people who have no concept of it.

Anthony Apicella Clermont

Iraq has cost U.S. taxpayers a trillion dollars, possibly more, and all we have to show for it is an incompetent government and army. If a Shiite-led nation of more than 30 million people can't defend itself against 20,000 to 30,000 Sunni terrorists, no additional arms or aid from us is going to make a difference.